Life and Times - Episode 2

A Warholian musical

Hurrah! The Nature Theater of Oklahoma is returning to the Kaaitheater with the second episode of its serial saga – Life and Times. A performance based on the life story of one of its own company members, Life and Times uses a verbatim transcript of over 16 hours of recorded telephone interviews as found material, which is as banal as it is compelling, an moving ode to the ordinary. While Episode 1 began with birth and continued to age 8, Episode 2 takes the tale on to the age of 14: The Adolescent Years, a time of full longing, losers, and – of course! – smoking in the woods. The Rosas dancer Fumiyo Ikeda is also taking part in this new episode!

• In part 1, the Nature Theater of Oklahoma under the direction of Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper created a sort of Warholian musical with perfect pop songs and doo-wop choruses. The poetics of this cult New York company are just as Warholian: ‘We make the work we don’t know how to make, putting ourselves in impossible situations, and working from out of our own ignorance and unease. We strive to create an unsettling live situation that demands total presence from everyone in the room. We use the readymade material around us, found space, overheard speech, and observed gesture, and through extreme formal manipulation, and superhuman effort, we affect in our work a shift in the perception of everyday reality that extends beyond the site of the performance and into the world in which we live.’
Part 3 of Life and Times will be on at the Kaaitheater in September 2012.

“Over the past several years the Nature Theater of Oklahoma has evolved into one of New York’s most talented ensembles…their shows are smart, witty, highly physical, and eager to twist notions of theatricality”
The Village VOICE

“At a time when even Off-Off Broadway productions seem infatuated with technology and spectacle, [Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s] bare-bones vision recalls the “poor theater” of the 1970’s…The focus is on the actors’ voices and bodies. They animate the theater with a bravura physicality.”
The New York Times
 
“The company boasts some particularly watchable performers – neither traditional actors nor the kind of non-actors writer-director Richard Maxwell sometimes uses, they perform in a way that's off-kilter yet deeply rooted; their stage aura both repels you and draws you in.”
The Village VOICE

“Nature Theater of Oklahoma, the most buzzed-about new troupe on the New York avant-garde scene, is certainly not for traditional tastes, its gleefully democratic spirit and old-fashioned showmanship certainly aims to please – and does so quite winningly.”
The New York Times